And, no doubt the first of many Thanksgivings he'll be spending behind bars if he's convicted of this morning's robbery....which is pretty much guaranteed considering that every embarrassing moment of Johnny's caper was caught on video.

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Mayor Oliver Gilbert said the allegations made by Saleh about police misconduct are untrue. The city has reached out to him in the past and he hasn’t been cooperative, he said. -Miami Herald, Nov. 23, 2013.

________

"I can’t be a mayor of a city that’s 80 percent black and having officers harass black people for doing nothing. You can’t get arrested for just going to the store."-Miami Gardens Mayor Oliver Gilbert, Miami Herald, Nov. 27, 2013.

________

Well, that didn't take long.

Last week, Miami Gardens Mayor Oliver Gilberttold the Miami Herald that there was absolutely no way that his police officers were engaging in a pattern of systematic harassment of the owner, employees and patrons of a gritty, nondescript convenience store on NW 207th Street.

The Herald's Julie Brown reported in Friday's paper that Miami Gardens police were "stopping citizens, questioning them, aggressively searching them and arresting them for trespassing when they have permission to be on the premises; [and] conducting searches of [owner Alex] Saleh’s business without search warrants or permission; using what appears to be excessive force on subjects who are clearly not resisting arrest and filing inaccurate police reports in connection with the arrests."

[Cameras] caught a police officer confronting a frail-looking woman, shoving his hand in her purse, dumping its contents on the pavement, then kicking at the scattered items before walking away.
They were rolling as another uniformed police officer handcuffed a 69-year-old man, then rifled through his pockets and ordered him to sit down while cuffed behind his back, a feat the man could only accomplish by falling on his backside.
There’s more footage: An officer grabs a plastic bag full of Red Bull drinks from a man, flinging the cans on the sidewalk, then picking up one and giving it away to someone in a parked car.
It’s not like the officers didn’t know they were being recorded.
They not only knew, the videos show, but in some cases, they relished it, taunting the store’s owner by waving open beer cans and cups, taken from customers, directly in front of the cameras as if the cans were trophies.

Brown reports that one Miami Gardens officer, William Dunaske, was caught on camera as he approached 70 year-old Willie Battle outside the store last January.

On that day, Officer William Dunaske, approached Battle, questioned him, took his beer, then ordered him to empty his pockets. But Battle was slow, and Dunaske, apparently to speed things along, asked him to put his hands behind his back, so he could handcuff him.
Dunaske then proceeded to stick his hands in Battle’s pants pockets, pulling out wads of paper and dropping them at the man’s feet. He led him toward a patrol car, where Battle was directed to sit on the pavement, a feat the handcuffed Battle managed to accomplish only by letting himself fall on his injured backside.
“I’m almost 70 years old, I can’t sit on the ground like that,’’ Battle said. “I told them to let me sit in the back of the police car, but they said I had to sit on the pavement.’’

A Google search reveals that Dunaske has a history of abusive and unprofessional behavior dating back to when he was a deputy sheriff in Lee County, FL.

Two Fort Myers pawnbrokers have sued Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott and a deputy, alleging Scott has a policy of intimidating and threatening to arrest pawnbrokers and conducting illegal searches and seizures.
Brothers Christopher and Ryan Close say former Deputy William Dunaske, 39, had a history of complaints by pawnbrokers, illegally jailed them and others without probable cause, yet Scott continued to employ him.

[...]

Records show Dunaske, who was hired in December 2003, resigned on Sept. 26, 2009.

[...]

The lawsuit gives this account:

Dunaske entered Larry’s Pawn East on April 13, 2009, while Christopher Close was working and announced he was conducting an investigation.

“Deputy Sheriff Dunaske proceeded to seize items and paperwork and caused a disruption to the point that Christopher Close could not transact business,” the complaint says.

“We’ll see if my sergeant is having a good day or a bad day,” Dunaske told him. “If he is having a bad day, you’re going downtown.”

Dunaske falsely accused Close of conducting transactions and filling out forms that violated the pawnbroker act, then arrested him.

“Deputy Sheriff Dunaske handcuffed Christopher Close and placed him in the back seat of an extremely hot police cruiser for approximately one hour,” the lawsuit says, alleging Dunaske refused requests for a glass of water.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Click here if you're looking for the story on the arrest of Miami Gardens Police Chief Stephen Johnson.

Matthew Boyd spent an unremarkable 24 years, 11 months with the Miami-Dade Police Department before retiring in 2006. A search of the Miami Herald's archives turns up almost nothing on Boyd in those 24 years.

After he retired from the MDPD, Boyd signed on with the City of Miami Gardens and began building its police department, becoming the department's first chief when it became operational in December 2007.

As chief of the Miami Gardens Police Department for the past 5 years, Boyd has entrenched himself in the same rut of mediocrity that he dug for himself in his almost 25 years at MDPD; destined to retire one day from the Miami Gardens PD without leaving a trace of ever having been there.

Earl Sampson has been stopped and questioned by Miami Gardens police 258 times in four years.
He’s been searched more than 100 times. And arrested and jailed 56 times.

Despite his long rap sheet, Sampson, 28, has never been convicted of anything more serious than possession of marijuana.

Miami Gardens police have arrested Sampson 62 times for one offense: trespassing.

Almost every citation was issued at the same place: the 207 Quickstop, a convenience store on 207th Street in Miami Gardens.

But Sampson isn’t loitering. He works as a clerk at the Quickstop.

So how can he be trespassing when he works there?

Just some of Earl Sampson's 56 arrests are documented on the Miami-Dade Clerk of the Court's website. Click here to enlarge.

The Herald's Brown reported that the store's owner, Alex Saleh, fed up with the harassment of Sampson and others, installed cameras in June 2012 both inside and outside his store to document it.

The videos show, among other things, cops stopping citizens, questioning them, aggressively searching them and arresting them for trespassing when they have permission to be on the premises; officers conducting searches of Saleh’s business without search warrants or permission; using what appears to be excessive force on subjects who are clearly not resisting arrest and filing inaccurate police reports in connection with the arrests.

Chief Matthew Boyd's luck had run out.

In an instant the media scrutiny that Boyd had successfully dodged for more than a quarter of a century, was now aimed squarely at him.

Mayor Oliver Gilbert said the allegations made by Saleh about police misconduct are untrue. The city has reached out to him in the past and he hasn’t been cooperative, he said.

“We have repeatedly asked the owner of the store to provide information so we can investigate his allegations and he has refused,” Gilbert said.

However, public records, obtained by the Herald, show that Saleh did provide videos to the city. The state attorney also issued a subpoena for the videos last year, and Saleh and his attorney complied. It’s not clear what, if any, action was taken. The state prosecutor’s records were not yet available on Friday.

“I gave them seven videos,’’ Saleh said. “I gave them to the internal affairs commander, Gary Smith.”

Saleh added that after he filed the internal affairs complaint in August 2012, one of the officers he complained about, Michael Malone, confronted a customer who was part of the complaint.

And what's Chief Matthew Boyd's reaction to all this?

He's gone into hiding.

The Herald reports that "repeated phone messages and emails to Chief Matthew Boyd were not returned."

A Skokie police officer charged with shoving a woman face-first into a cell bench has resigned rather than face possible firing, village officials announced today.

Skokie officials had told Michael Hart last week they would seek to fire him, and his resignation took effect today, according to a news release from the village. In late October, Cook County prosecutors charged Hart with aggravated battery and official misconduct.
[...]
In an episode caught on video in March, Hart shoved Cassandra Feuerstein from behind into a police station cell after the officer became irate that she wouldn’t look into the camera for a booking photo following a drunken driving arrest, prosecutors said. Feuerstein, of Chicago, fell and hit her face on the bench, breaking her eye socket and loosening teeth, according to prosecutors.

The Tribune reported: "Hart’s attorney, Jed Stone, said that he believes people are judging the officer too harshly based on a video circulated widely online. Stone said what Hart did was not 'an intentional act' and it wasn’t a crime."

Not a crime? Really?

Watch the video below. At 1:51 we see Hart push the woman into a holding cell with enough force to break her eye socket and loosen her teeth. It doesn't appear to be all that serious until you look at the tape at 2:38 and see a pool of blood on the cell floor.

What makes Hart's case different from other cases of stupid cops getting caught on video is that he wasn't done in by a citizen with an iPhone.

He was caught in the act of committing a crime by the jail's surveillance system. And now he's out of job.

Still not convinced?

Check out the video report below from a Columbia SC TV station.

An off-duty county deputy named Paul Allen Derrick was drinking in a bar when he tried to "arrest" another patron.

But first he had to go out to his vehicle to retrieve his gun, badge and handcuffs. And that's when things went terribly wrong. And it was all caught on camera.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Without taking a formal survey, I think I can safely say that a majority of folks in Miami-Dade County despise Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria.

And, why not? There are plenty of reasons to hate the guy.

But there's no point in repeating any of them here. Just go to Google and search for "loria most hated man in baseball." (While you're there, go ahead and Google "miami herald's most fraudulent columnist.")

So much so, that she devoted her Saturday column to him. (Going after low hanging fruit is Fabiola's specialty.)

I believe in fairy tales, the magic of Christmas and that Bigfoot is somewhere out there.

But in Marlins team owner Jeffrey Loria, not at all.

The most-loathed team owner in America struck a new low this week with a manipulative video of the most likeable guy in baseball — newly crowned Rookie of the Year José Fernández, a cubanito with a lot of heart and pitching skill, reuniting with his beloved abuela after a six-year separation.

Sure, Loria is a devious, scheming assh*le. There's nothing he won't do to burnish his image, no matter how poorly thought out it is.

Cubans were forbidden from freely traveling until last January’s reforms. Now any Cuban with a passport and U.S. visa can visit. Cuba is churning out passports, and the U.S. Interests Section is granting multiple-entry visitor visas. Fernández’s grandmother traveled like any other abuela. Only that her grandson, with a rookie starting salary of $495,000, can easily afford the paperwork and plane ticket.

Unbelievably, she seems to suggest that Loria didn't do anything that the grandmother in Havana - and her grandson in Miami with his big, fat baseball salary - couldn't have done on their own.

Had she picked up the phone and called the Marlins organization, she might have learned exactly what Loria did - or didn't do - to make the reunion happen. That's what a real journalist would have done.

But my favorite part of Fabiola's screed is when she writes that the reunion video is "a crass marketing ploy to vindicate Loria for...putting the area’s financial health at risk with a bad $600 million stadium deal."

Fabiola conveniently omits the fact that it was her colleagues at the Miami Herald who aided and abetted Jeffrey Loria by churning out a never-ending stream of columns and editorials in favor of the stadium deal.

Fabiola then ends the column with this rebuke: "Don’t use the pathos of our exile for marketing purposes. Stay way out of our politics [Mr. Loria]."

Really, Fabiola? Stay out of "our politics?"

An argument could be made that if that same warning had been issued fifty years ago to newly-arriving Cuban exiles, Miami might be a markedly different place today.

Now, that's something I'd like to see you tackle in your next column, Fabi.

Question: Why are these people laughing?Answer: Because their mission to destroy what's left of the Miami Herald is nearly complete.

________

"Anything worth doing, is worth doing right."-Hunter S. Thompson

________

Hello Rick and Mindy:

As I'm sure you know, some of your staffers have accused me of running a blog that's anti-Herald.

On Facebook a while back, the always sanctimonious Fabiola Santiago went so far as to accuse me of hating the Herald.

But even if all that were true - which it's not - I couldn't have, in my wildest dreams, come up with a more diabolical plan to destroy the Herald and its brand than the one the two of you have implemented since taking charge of the paper.

What am I talking about?

Take a look at the video (below) that several of your staffers alerted me to Thursday evening. It's irrefutable evidence that there's no longer anyone in charge at the paper.

After watching that garbage, I pinched myself to make sure I wasn't in the middle of a bad dream.

Then I came up with a few questions for both of you:

1) Doesn't anyone in charge at the Herald realize that passing off crap like that under the guise of journalism is disrespectful and insulting to your readers?

2) Does anyone in authority look at stuff before it's posted? Or can any 12-year-old post anything on the website?

3) Would a written story with the same apparent lack of quality control make it into the paper?

4) Aren't either of you the least bit embarrassed at what you've done to your paper? How much further does the Herald have to sink before you feel any sense of shame or remorse?

Thursday, November 14, 2013

via Deadspin and MLB.com: "Marlins superstar pitcher Jose Fernandez hasn't seen his grandmother since he defected from Cuba at the age of 15. So the Marlins decided to sit him down for an interview, ask him to talk about how much he loves his grandma, and then surprise him by bringing her into the room."

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

I'm not sure how they're going to accomplish this since there's almost no one left at the Herald now to put out a paper, but here's an email executive editor Mindy Marques sent to the newsroom this morning:

For more than a half century, he has been a legend in Florida newspapering -- a super-competitive, cantankerous, feisty, abrasive, editor-hating, ambulance-chasing, go-get-'em tough guy from an era when newspapermen still unashamedly used the word scoop, when there were bulldog editions and legmen and shouts of "Stop the presses!" -John Dorschner, Tropic magazine, Feb. 16, 1992.

......

[Milt] Sosin did not become a South Florida journalism legend by being Mr. Nice Guy. He got there by guts and guile, by working hard and traveling far. He got there by an almost supernatural ability to be where news was taking place. A plane crashes and Sosin is on board. A hurricane changes course and strikes where Sosin is staying. The man who killed John F. Kennedy is murdered and Sosin is close enough to smell gunpowder.

"I know he wasn't at Pearl Harbor," says Howard Kleinberg, the former editor of the now-defunct Miami News, where Sosin was the star reporter for 32 years. "And I know he wasn't at the birth of Christ. But he was everywhere else." -Jeff Klinkenberg, St. Petersburg Times, July 15, 1990.

________

Miami News, Nov. 23, 1963. (Click to enlarge.)

There's no one left to ask, but I'm pretty sure that on a Friday afternoon 50 years ago this month, when editors at the Miami News got word that President John F. Kennedy had been murdered in Dallas, someone in the newsroom shouted, "Send Sosin!"

And that's how Milt Sosin - already a legend at the News - ended up covering the biggest story of his career.

In 1963, the 55-year-old Sosin was the Miami News' star reporter, and "he always carried his passport, with a few hundred dollars and a bag packed, ready to take off at an instant's notice," the Herald's John Dorschner wrote in 1992.

On Sunday morning Sosin joined a gang of about 50 newsmen, TV reporters and technicians, and photographers, all jammed into the basement of the Dallas Police Department to witness the transfer of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald to an armored car that would transport him to jail.

Sosin's presence in the basement that Sunday confirmed that he did, indeed, have a "supernatural ability to be where news was taking place."

In 1983, on the 20th anniversary of Kennedy's death, Sosin recounted just how close he had been to Jack Ruby when Ruby rushed forward and shot Oswald:

It was shortly after noon on Nov. 24, 1963 and my mother was watching television in her Manhattan apartment. My sister, Lee, was in the kitchen washing the lunch dishes when she heard my mother cry out.

"Lee, come here, quick!"

Lee ran into the living room and saw my mother pointing at the TV.

"They just shot Milt," my mother said.

I had been standing a few feet from Jack Ruby when he shot Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of Dallas City Hall.

My mother thought Ruby had shot me.

My sister watched the action on the screen for a few moments until she spotted me. "No, he's all right," Lee said. "There he is, standing there talking to that big man in a white hat."

The late Miami News columnist John Keasler once described Sosin as "the most abrasive, annoying, persistent reporter I ever saw."

That Sunday morning, an entire nation got to see just how "annoying" and "persistent" Sosin could be.

Seconds after the shooting of Oswald, Tom Petit of NBC News was attempting to interview fellow reporters on live TV, when (at about 2:30 in the video below) Sosin barged in and co-opted the interview, convinced perhaps, that Petit wasn't asking the right questions. Or the questions Sosin wanted asked.

Milt had an open phone line to me for the Hastings verdict. Just seconds after Milt relayed the "not guilty" verdict, I heard a bit of a commotion. Milt was yelling, "No, judge, I'm on this line, use the other phone, use the other phone!" (Or something very close to that.)
I asked Milt where he was calling from -- he was in Hastings' chambers, on Hastings' phone!
Then I heard, "Mama, I'm innocent! Mama I'm innocent!" Milt had put his receiver beside the phone Hastings was using to call his mother. Milt asks me: "Are you getting this? Are you getting this?" And repeats, "Mama, I'm innocent."
Yes, Milt, I got it, great stuff!

Saturday, November 09, 2013

Embattled Miami Dolphins offensive lineman Richie Incognito flew into Los Angeles Friday afternoon, and Local 10's Ross Palombo was there to greet him at the airport. (Ross IS THE ONLY SOUTH FLORIDA REPORTER IN LOS ANGELES don't ya know!)

Incognito made it abundantly clear from the get-go that he wasn't going to answer any questions from Palombo. But that didn't stop Miami's most beloved annoying TV nooze man from badgering him with asinine questions for a full 10 minutes.

Apparently Local 10 bossed thought the images of Ross chasing Incognito through the airport were so compelling that they decided to break into regular programming and share them with their viewers. Local 10's viewers disagreed.

And the honchos at Local 10 were so proud of Ross' EXCLUSIVE! that they posted the raw video on the website.

Hopefully someone at The Daily Show will get a look at this. This clown is a caricature of every obnoxious TV reporter who's ever repeatedly shoved a mike in someone's face.

Now, grab some popcorn and watch Ross make a complete ass of himself. It's video you'll see ONLY ON 10!

Shortly after he said that at a commission meeting in November 2012, he voted to give Miami Beach's two towing companies an exorbitant rate hike.

But he still has no clue why he couldn't beat millionaire challenger Philip Levine.

In a whiny email sent to his constituents today, Góngora blamed his impending defeat on the fact that Levine spent more money than he did, with most of that, according to Góngora, going towards "negative mailers...filled with lies and distortions against me," and "glowing [TV] commercials about himself."

Well, excuuuse me, Commish!

Let me steal a line from Barney Frank and ask, "On what planet do you spend most of your time?"

That's how politics is played here on Earth: A political opponent portrays you as a rat-bastard schmuck, while he makes himself look like a knight in shining armor galloping in on a white steed to save the populace in the nick of time from your chicanery and skullduggery.

The past 24 hours has been very challenging, yet very rewarding due to the overwhelming support and messages from many of you.

Thank you for your unwavering support! My team and I worked very hard for this election. No one could have done more with the financial resources available to us. It is quite simply the most daunting task of my life to confront the huge amount of dollars being used for advertising against us. Our total expenditures were $255,625.51 while my opponent spent $1,791,402.07. We counted an unprecedented 19 negative mailers received at my home that were filled with lies and distortions against me, while my opponents TV spots were glowing commercials about himself. Because of his overwhelming financial advantage, my opponent was able to advertise on Good Morning America while we were limited to cable TV and Facebook.

As we have read in the Miami Herald, the initial election results indicate that my opponent won the election for Miami Beach Mayor with 50.48% of the vote.

However, the results have not been certified because the number is less than 50.5%. The Elections Canvassing Board requires an automatic recount in such cases of less than 50.5%. The recount begins Friday, November 8th at 10 am to review provisional ballots for inaccuracies. If after these processes the percentage drops to 50% or less then there will be a run-off election on Tuesday, November 19th. I will let you know the results of the recount and whether we are headed towards a run off election on November 19th. Please share with me any irregularities you may have encountered voting as this may be important.

I will be at the supervisor of elections on Friday and I am hopeful we will have a runoff election to give the voters a second chance to let their voice be heard.

Since you're all about equal treatment under the law, and standing up for the little guy, perhaps you can "investigate" this and do a three-part or four-part series on TV station live truck operators who think they can park anywhere they please.

I know you've only been in South Florida for a relatively short time, but as someone who's been a journalist in this town for over 30 years, I can emphatically state that live truck operators have been making up their own parking rules for as long as I can remember.

Get back to me if you can.

By the way, I just love it when you show up at those dirty restaurants unannounced. Wait, I think I got you mixed up with the short guy at your station.

Miami Beach police have arrested wacky Miami Beach mayoral candidate Raphael Herman and charged him with aggravated battery, assault and criminal mischief following an incident that took place on a bus Sunday afternoon.

According to the arrest report, Herman, 67, boarded a Miami-Dade transit bus at 41st Street at Alton Road.

Police say Herman immediately became aggressive toward black passengers who refused to move so that he could sit down because he was elderly.

Herman then turned his attention to the female bus driver, who is also black, "verbally abusing" her, police say.

The driver stopped the bus at 41st Street and Indian Creek Drive where Herman, the bus driver, and another male passenger got into an argument over Herman’s behavior.

After Herman and a male passenger got off the bus, cops say that at some point Herman "armed himself with a wooden flag pole and began to wildly swing it."

Herman, still swinging the flag pole, narrowly missed striking the male passenger on several occasions. The passenger blocked some of the blows and finally was able to punch Herman in the face.

Another passenger intervened and stopped the fight.

After the cops arrived and started interviewing the driver and passengers, according to the arrest report, Herman said, "all blacks always stick together" and that if cops didn't arrest them he "would have them killed in 24 hours." Herman also told the cops that he was a member of the Israeli Special Forces and a candidate for mayor.

After his arrest, Herman told cops he wasn't feeling well so they took him to Mt. Sinai Hospital.

Herman was booked into jail at 9:15 last night.

It's not Herman's first arrest while running for mayor.

Thirty years ago, Herman - a perennial candidate for Beach mayor - was "arrested and charged with fleeing arrest after parking his campaign truck in a no-parking zone," according to a 1983 Herald story.

That year Herman was running on a platform of ridding Miami Beach of terrorists, telling the Herald that the city "was overrun not by tourists but by terrorists."

An Oct. 30, 1983 Herald story quoted Herman: "I am used to terrorists, and I know how to deal with them. Elect me as mayor."

Sunday, November 03, 2013

Local 10's Michael Putney closed out his show Sunday morning with some thoughts on the Miami Herald's decision earlier this week to publish - verbatim - a statement from the campaign manager for Miami Beach mayoral candidate Philip Levine.

________

Before we leave you this morning, a personal perspective about the especially nasty race for mayor of Miami Beach and the role of the [Miami] Herald.

You may recall that the three candidates appeared on this program a few weeks ago... and it was pretty much a food fight. Michael Gongora and Philip Levine, the two leading candidates spent most of their time trashing each other, and Steve Berke, a onetime standup comedian, often seemed like the grown-up in the group.

But things have devolved even further since then, aided and abetted by the Herald.

The Herald did the unthinkable by printing, word for word, a statement by the Levine campaign in response to legitimate questions from a Herald reporter. The Levine campaign demanded that the Herald not edit or change a word of their statement....and unbelievably the Herald complied. John S. Knight must be rolling over in his grave.

The result is a terrible precedent. Now, any two-bit political candidate who's asked a question by the Herald can say: give me the questions in writing, I'll give you a statement and you've got to run it just the way it is. just like you did for Philip Levine.

When politicians dictate the terms of communicating with the media, it's not healthy.

Like it or not, we in the media are your surrogates, we speak on your behalf.